nature
rooster
גבר · שכוי · זיז שדי · תרנגול
Bottom line
Tarnegol is the ordinary word for a rooster in Mishnaic Hebrew and the safe rendering wherever it appears. Gever means man or male far more often than rooster; read it as a bird only where the context forces it (the Mishnah's "call of the gever," Targum Yonasan on Etzion Gever). Sechvi is the genuinely open word: Chazal fix it as rooster in the morning berachah, but most mefarshim read it as the heart. Ziz sadai is a bird of some kind, which Targum renders wild fowl. Never translate sechvi as "rooster" in Iyov 38:36 without noting that Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Radak, Rosh, and Tur read it otherwise.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| גבר | gever | rooster (rarely) | normally "man"; seemingly a cognate of gevurah, strength; the distinctive voice among birds (Rabbeinu Efrayim) |
| שכוי | sechvi | rooster / heart | a hapax; rooster for Chazal, heart for most mefarshim, skull for Pappenheim |
| זיז שדי | ziz sadai | wild fowl | Tehillim 50:11, 80:14; tarnegol bara in Targum |
| תרנגול | tarnegol | rooster | post-Biblical, the Mishnaic standard; letters of Nergal rearranged (Rabbi Meir HaLevi Abulafia) |
Where the authorities disagree
What sechvi means (Iyov 38:36, "Who gives understanding to the sechvi"). Three positions.
- Rooster. Chazal report that in a certain foreign place people called a rooster a sechvi; Bavli Rosh Hashanah 26a names Kennesrin in northern Syria, Yerushalmi Berachos 9:1 names Rome, and Vayikra Rabbah 25:5 names Arabia. Berachos 60b builds the morning berachah on this, "Who gave the sechvi understanding to distinguish day from night."
- The heart. The majority of mefarshim, or at least they hold it means this as well: Ibn Janach (Sefer HaShorashim), Rabbeinu Chananel (to Rosh Hashanah 26a), Rashi and Ibn Ezra (to Iyov 38:36), Radak (Sefer HaShorashim and to Tehillim 73:7), Rosh (Berachos 9:23), Tur (Orach Chaim 46), and others. Siddur HaRokeach reads it as the neshamah.
- The skull. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces it to ס-ח, covering or barrier, the root of sukkah (a covered enclosure), nesech (a libation covering a spot with liquid), and sichah (smearing with oil); the sechvi is the skull that covers and shields the brain.
Daas Mikra (to Iyov 38:36) cites other scholars who read the passage in Iyov as concerning types of cloud, so that sechvi means a cloud. The Bottom line follows Chazal for the berachah, since the halachah is settled there, and flags the heart reading wherever Iyov 38:36 itself is being translated.
How sechvi and "seeing" connect. Rashi ties it to socheh, gazing (compare Targum to Shmuel I 17:42 and Yeshayahu 21:8): the heart is the organ that tries to see an action's future consequences, or else the rooster, which sees far (Abudarham). Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg specifies that the seeing is intellectual rather than physical, and groups sechvi with hasket (to listen with the mind, not merely hear) and maskis (arresting figures engraved in stone).
Where the name Nergal points. After the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Yisrael they settled Mesopotamian foreigners in the land, each bringing his own deity: the men of Bavel brought Sukkos Benos and the men of Kutha made Nergal (Melachim II 17:30). Sanhedrin 63b relates that Sukkos Benos was a hen-shaped idol and Nergal a rooster-shaped one; Rabbeinu Chananel specifies a wild rooster. Rabbi Meir HaLevi Abulafia offers two accounts of the name: tarnegol has the same letters as nergal, or nergal is from ragil, frequent, since the rooster copulates most often. The Yerushalmi (Avodah Zarah 3:2) understands Nergal differently, as a foot-shaped idol, from regel, treating the nun as not integral to the core meaning. On the strength of the Sanhedrin passage Rabbi Chaim Futernik surmises that sechvi in the sense of rooster is itself related to the name Sukkos Benos.
Distinctions
gever (גבר)
Root ג-ב-ר, seemingly a cognate of gevurah. Rabbeinu Efrayim: a rooster is called gever because its voice is distinct among birds as a man's is from a woman's. The Mishnah uses "the call of the gever" three times for daybreak (Yoma 1:8, Sukkah 5:4, Tamid 1:2, and see Yoma 20b), and Targum Yonasan (to Bamidbar 33:35) renders Etzion Gever as the City of the Rooster. The city is one of the stops of the forty years in the wilderness (Bamidbar 33:35-36, Devarim 2:8); Shlomo HaMelech later stationed his navy there (Melachim I 9:26, Divrei HaYamim II 8:17), and Yehoshafat's ships broke down there (Melachim I 22:49, Divrei HaYamim II 20:36).
Why Bilaam called himself a gever (Bamidbar 24:3, 24:15) drew several readings. Rabbeinu Efrayim: Berachos 7a says the moment of Divine anger each morning can be identified when the rooster's red crest turns white, and Bilaam likewise knew the moment a curse would take. (The column adds, as a curiosity, that a 2021 paper by Dr. Jessica L. Lamont of Yale demonstrates that chickens were particularly associated with curse rituals in ancient Greece.) Peirush HaRokeach: the rooster copulates constantly (Berachos 22a), and Bilaam was as single-minded. Siddur HaRokeach: the rooster shuts one eye and stands on one foot at that moment, and Bilaam was blind in one eye and lame in one foot. Rabbeinu Bachya (to Bamidbar 24:3): the rooster crows seven times (Perek Shirah ch. 4 assigns it seven songs), matching Bilaam's seven oracles. Peirush HaRokeach also explains Etzion Gever's name from its inhabitants' gift for counsel and for intuiting the hour as a rooster does, and Rabbi Menachem Tziyyoni cites the Mekubalim that some of them commanded an esoteric wisdom called the Knowledge of the Chicken, hinted at in the city's name.
ziz sadai (זיז שדי)
Twice in Tehillim (50:11, 80:14), plainly a bird. Targum both times renders tarnegol bara, wild chicken. Rabbi Dr. Yehuda Felix points out that tarnegol bara also denotes the duchifas (Vayikra 11:19), commonly identified as the hoopoe (see Gittin 68b).
tarnegol (תרנגול)
Not in Tanach; ubiquitous in the Mishnah (Terumos 11:9, Maasros 3:7, Shabbos 5:4, 18:2 and 24:3, Pesachim 2:7 and 5:7, Nedarim 5:1, Bava Kama 2:1, 7:7 and 10:9, Bava Metzia 5:4, Bava Basra 3:5, Eduyos 6:1, Avodah Zarah 1:5, Chullin 3:5 and 12:1, Meilah 3:5, Keilim 8:5, Parah 5:6, Taharos 3:8). The word also turns up in the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QT[c]) in connection with the prohibition on raising chickens in Yerushalayim, a prohibition codified in the Mishnah as well (Bava Kama 7:7).
Rabbi Dr. Ernest Klein derives tarnegol from the Akkadian tar-lugallu ("cock"), assuming an interchange of nun and lamed. The Akkadian word is itself a compound of the Sumerian tar ("bird," which the column compares to the Hebrew tor, pigeon) and lugal ("king"), perhaps an allusion to the rooster's crest, which resembles a king's crown. The column adds a further curiosity of its own: Bilaam, who called himself a rooster, had as his patron Balak son of Tzippor, whose father's name means "bird" and who was himself a king.
Rendering guidance
- Trap: "rooster" absorbs gever, sechvi, and tarnegol. In a passage that moves between them, keep gever as "the gever" or "the cock" and reserve "rooster" for tarnegol.
- Gever in Tanach almost always means a man. Bamidbar 24:3, ne'um hagever, is "the word of the man"; the rooster reading is a derashah on top of that, not a replacement for it, and both should show if the derashah is being quoted.
- In the berachah, render sechvi as the siddur's own tradition takes it, "rooster," and do not import the heart reading into the tefillah.
- In Iyov 38:36 the pasuk pairs tuchos (the kidneys, or the inward parts) with sechvi. If you render tuchos internally, "heart" for sechvi keeps the parallel; if you render "rooster," the parallel breaks, which is exactly the reason most mefarshim went the other way.
- Ziz sadai is best left as a phrase with a gloss, "the wild creature of the field," rather than pinned to a species Tanach does not name.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Welcome to Rooster City," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 1 Av 5781 (2021-07-10): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9288-welcome-to-rooster-city.md. Primary loci: Bamidbar 24:3, 24:15, 33:35-36; Devarim 2:8; Vayikra 11:19; Melachim I 9:26, 22:49; Melachim II 17:30; Divrei HaYamim II 8:17, 20:36; Tehillim 50:11, 73:7, 80:14; Iyov 38:36; Berachos 7a, 22a, 60b; Rosh Hashanah 26a; Yoma 20b; Gittin 68b; Sanhedrin 63b; Yerushalmi Berachos 9:1 and Avodah Zarah 3:2; Vayikra Rabbah 25:5; Mishnah Yoma 1:8, Sukkah 5:4, Tamid 1:2, Bava Kama 7:7; Rosh to Berachos 9:23; Tur Orach Chaim 46; Perek Shirah ch. 4; and the full run of Mishnaic tarnegol loci listed in the body.
Two slips in the article are corrected here rather than repeated. It prints Rashi to Iyov 38:37; the pasuk under discussion, and Rashi's comment, are at 38:36. It prints Divrei HaYamim II 20:26 for Yehoshafat's ships at Etzion Gever; the passage is at 20:36. The article's material from Rabbi Dr. Ernest Klein (Akkadian tar-lugallu), from the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QT[c]), and from Dr. Jessica L. Lamont's 2021 paper on chickens in Greek curse ritual was formerly omitted here under an Orthodox-sources rule that does not belong to this guide; all three are restored, attributed as the column attributes them. One sentence of our own, that the Aramaic tarnegol bara is therefore not by itself decisive for ziz sadai, has been cut: Rabbi Klein records the duchifas overlap without drawing that conclusion.